


Daybreak & Heartache

by fallensmiles



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 05:37:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21094277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallensmiles/pseuds/fallensmiles
Summary: Nearly fifteen years later, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, overwhelmed by grief, will have to make a major sacrifice when tragedy strikes.*LOVE EATER + MIRACLE QUEEN SPOILERS*





	Daybreak & Heartache

**Author's Note:**

> hi !! i'm really sorry in advance if this isn't that good. i haven't written anything remotely serious in a hot minute. anyways, i hope you enjoy this !!
> 
> lvdynoire on twitter <3

_Marinette gaped, horrified, her feet seemingly glued to the ground, as she watched the sight before her unfold. Her and Chat Noir, along with their teammates, had been fighting Paris’ newest addition to its league of villains, ‘The Annihilator,’ and she would be lying if she said he wasn’t skilled with a sword. She watched as he lunged forward with the grace of a swan or even a ballerina, as if it was a dance, and watched as his sword sank through her partner. She saw the blade poke out from his back, the leather of his suit torn, and stared at the crimson ichor dripping off of it. She screamed out with everything she had, just as the supervillain pulled his sword out of her partner. She leapt forward just in time to catch him before he hit the ground. Cradling his head with one hand while the other cupped his cheek, she muttered out to him, begging him to open his eyes to look at her, and she tried her very hardest not to let her tears fall - to no avail, of course.  
She knew that Rena Rouge and Queen Bee had managed to free the akuma from the villain, and he was returned to his normal state, but Marinette couldn’t bring herself to de-evilize the akuma and set everything back to how it was. Not now, with Chat Noir bleeding out in her arms. No amount of magic could save him.  
“Chat, please,” she choked out, rubbing circles into the smooth skin of his cheek, though she couldn’t feel it through the material of the suit. She wasn’t even aware in the slightest of the crowd forming around her; no, in that moment, Chat Noir was the only person in the world. She watched as his eyes slowly started to flutter open, and her heart leapt out of her chest. He’s not dead, she thought, grateful - though the harsh reality was that there wouldn’t be much time until he really was.  
“Chat! Chat, can you hear me?” His only response was that of a small nod, and she grinned from ear to ear, despite the flow of tears that were still falling down into his hair and were lightly dusting over his face. She started to lift him up, no doubt to get him help - but he reached a hand out to the best abilities, stopping her.  
“Chat, come on, you need-”  
“No.” His answer was short, almost aggressive. “People can’t … heal this stuff, bugaboo. I’d rather just stay here with you than die in an ambulance, alone, on the way to the hospital.”  
She was taken aback, for sure - and the mention of him dying only made her sobs rack through her, shaking her entire body with each one. How was he so okay with this? How had he already come to terms with this, accepted just how cruel the world could be? In his last moments, how was he so calm?  
“Come here,” he whispered, and she immediately leaned forward towards him with whatever strength she had left in her body. She expected him to say something, but instead, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her down. She rested her head on his chest, her tears still slipping down onto the leather of his suit. She tried her best to ignore the pool of blood at his stomach. He just … held her, while she cried.  
Leaning forward to the best of his abilities, he brushed a loose strand of her hair behind her ear, and whispered in a voice so low that only she could hear, “Please don’t miss me too much, okay? Don’t remember me like this. Instead, think back to all the fun memories we had together, because they were the ones I treasured the most.”  
And in an even quieter voice, so quiet she almost didn’t hear him, “I love you, Marinette.”  
She bolted up, puzzled; how had he known who she was? She hadn’t told anybody who she was. She knew that when she became the guardian, that only gave her more reason to not tell anybody that she was the spotted superheroine.  
She watched as his head fell back and his body fell limp, though his arm remained draped around her shoulders. It wasn’t long until his body was engulfed in a flash of green magic, and she stared down in horror at the same suit she has watched Adrien leave the house in that morning. She dared a glance up at his face, and when she saw that it truly was just what she had feared, she sobbed harder than she ever had in her life. She clung to his body like it was a lifeline, crying into the crook of his neck as she inhaled the familiar scent of his cologne.  
It had been him underneath the mask all along, and to make matters worse, he had known. He had kept it a secret from her so that she wouldn’t worry that he knew about her alter ego, but he had known, where she didn’t. She didn’t know how long she had sat there, crying into him, but eventually, she was pulled off by her superhero friends as the ambulance rushed to get him into the back of it.___

_ _\------------------------------------------_ _

_ _Marinette awoke and stared over at the empty side of the bed, just as she had done for two weeks now. Adrien’s funeral service had already come and gone in a blur, and she had hardly gotten out of her bed since then. Alya, Nino, Chloe, and Luka often came over to check on her - in fact, she was pretty sure they had a planned out schedule for it. One was always with her at all times, somewhere in the apartment at any and every moment in case she needed anything.  
She didn’t know how long she had been staring at the untouched sheets where he used to lay, but she was snapped out of her trance at the sound of somebody knocking at her door. Some aching part deep down within her hoped it was Adrien; that she had just woken up from a bad nightmare and that he was here with freshly made crepes to comfort her.  
Instead, her gaze landed on Luka Couffaine - who she assumed had either just gotten here or had been the one who’d spent the night last night. If she were being honest, she’d been too distracted with her own thoughts to ever know what their exact order really was.  
“Hey,” she muttered, mustering the best smile she possibly could, which was really just a grimace. He offered a soft smile of his own, inviting himself to take a seat on the edge of the bed beside Marinette.  
“How are you holding up?” He asked in a soft tone, though she didn’t reply; they both already knew the answer. He sighed, before reaching over to pull her into a tight hug. She didn’t know how to react at first, but it wasn’t long until she melted into his touch, and the tears started to fall again. At this point, she didn’t understand how her body was still able to produce tears with how much she’d cried over the last two weeks. He only held her to his chest tighter, and the girl let it all go, her feelings crashing down onto her like a tidal wave, trying to push her down beneath the water and drown her.  
“I’m sorry,” she finally said when she was able to form words again, pulling away just slightly - though not enough for him to loosen his grip on her. “I got tears and snot all over your hoodie.”  
He chuckled a bit, which brought a small smile to her lips, but he simply just shrugged it off. “Hey, it’s okay. I can always just wash it, y’know.” Deeming her okay now, he let go of her, almost hesitantly. He shifted his body to face her, pulling both of his legs up onto the bed and crossing them. Silence fell over them like a dark blanket.  
Finally, sure that her voice wouldn’t break when she tried to talk, she spoke up, “I … I was there, you know.”  
His dark brows pinched together, confusion clear on his features. “You were?”  
“Yeah,” she muttered. “He died in my arms, actually.”  
Luka stared blankly for a few seconds, clearly confused, until his face lit up and it was almost like she could see a series of lightbulbs going off in his head. “You’re Ladybug.” She nodded.  
“He knew, too. He called- … he called me by my name and told me that he loved me, just before he died. I spent so long rejecting him. He’s been in love with me since we were, what? Thirteen? And I never realized it was him, but he probably knew the whole time, and-” She had to cut herself off, already getting too worked up over it all, and she could feel the tears already starting to brim in her eyes, glazing over them like a layer of glass.  
“It’s my fault, too. I’m the guardian of the Miraculouses, you know. If I would’ve just connected the dots, I could’ve just taken his Miraculous away and given it to somebody else, and he’d still be here right now. It’s my fault that Adrien is dead, all because I didn’t see it sooner. I was too wrapped up in Adrien to ever see Chat.”  
“Hey, don’t say that,” Luka was quick to drape an arm around her yet again, pulling her to his side, wanting nothing more than to comfort her. His brain was still struggling to grasp the concept of it all - of Marinette, shy and clumsy Marinette, being Ladybug; not to mention the guardian of all the Miraculouses. “It’s not your fault. He was already Chat Noir before you became the guardian, I’m assuming. Right? So you didn’t give him the Miraculous, and you had no way of knowing that it really was him. You aren’t the reason that he’s not here anymore, Mari. I promise you that.”  
She fell back into the silence, trying to listen to his words, but no matter what Luka or anybody said, she still couldn’t find it within herself to actually believe it.  
“When will Alya be over?” She finally asked, the question breaking the silence.  
“Uh - pretty soon, I think. I think she wanted to try to spend some girl time with you today, maybe try to get you out of the house …”  
Marinette nodded, and as if on cue, there was a loud knock on the door. Luka stood from the bed before the girl even had a chance to think about moving. “That’s probably her now, so I’ll let her in on the way out. Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything, okay?” He leaned down to embrace her in one last warm hug, before he swiftly exited her bedroom. It was a minute or so later when Alya stepped through the doorway, carrying freshly baked croissaints - no doubt from her parents - and a tub of ice cream.  
“Hey, girl,” she greeted with a warm smile, one that Marinette couldn’t help but return.  
The two spent the day together watching comedy movies, indulging themselves in sugary sweets, talking to one another, playing games - and whatever else Alya could think to do to cheer her best friend up. It became pretty obvious fairly on in the day that leaving the house was completely out of the question, seeing as the ravenette seemed to be against even opening the curtains to let the sunshine pour into the room. Their time together had come to an end, and Alya was rising to her feet, about ready to leave.  
“Wait,” the other girl called out, extending an arm forward to grip Alya’s wrist. A bit confused, Alya sat back down on the bed, just as her friend released her grip on her arm.  
“I know you’re Rena Rouge,” she muttered, expecting a gasp or some sort of expression of surprise, though she was given none.  
“And I know you’re Ladybug.”  
Mari chose not to press further on it; she knew Alya was an amazing journalist and an even better detective, so it came to no surprise that she had connected the dots somewhere on the way. “I … I need you to do something for me.”  
Alya didn’t say anything, so the other girl used the time to further explain just what she needed, “I need you to become the new guardian of the Miraculouses.”  
This sure elicited a shocked surprise from her friend, her eyes so wide that she was sure they had nearly popped out of their sockets.  
“Mari … girl, you know I’d love to help you, but I can’t do that for you. Your memories-”  
“Alya, I know. That’s why I want to do it. You … you don’t know how heartbroken I feel, how much I blame myself. I shouldv’e know it was him. I’d rather not know who he was at all than live with the guilt, the guilt that is weighing me down with every single step I make. I feel like I’m walking in quicksand, like every step I take and attempt I make to free myself from it, it just pulls me back down deeper, like I’m drowning. - I wrote myself a letter, so I’d remember you guys. But I don’t want to remember Adrien. I can’t remember him.”  
“Mari-”  
“I’m going to give up being the guardian, Alya, and you will get the box of Miraculouses. I’m going to fall asleep, and while I’m asleep, I will lose all of my memories. During that time, I want you to leave with the box and not come back until tomorrow. And I won’t hear anything about this again, okay? I do not know Adrien Agreste. I do not know Chat Noir or Ladybug. Do you understand?”  
Before Alya had the chance to even pspeak up, most likely to talk her best friend out of this plan, she started speaking yet again.  
“I, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, relinquish the Miraculous box, and proclaim Alya Césaire the new guardian.”  
Marinette didn’t quite know what had happened, but she did know that her eyelids felt like they were being weighed down, and that she could barely keep them open anymore.  
She felt Alya rise from the bed, and before she drifted off into a deep sleep, she muttered, “Thank you.”  
That night, Marinette dreamt of a beautiful blonde boy with golden locks and emerald eyes that held the sun in them, and she dreamt of the feeling of her heart fluttering against her ribcage each time he even did so much as glance in her direction. The next morning, she awoke feeling like her heart was torn from within her chest, and for the life of her, she couldn’t remember why._ _


End file.
